TACLOBAN (UCAN): To date, Caritas has been able to help about 1.8 million people affected by the destruction brought by Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), which struck the central Philippines in 2013.

Five years on from the disaster, the Church’s recovery and rehabilitation programme has become one of its largest and far-reaching natural disaster responses, amounting to about US$50 million ($392 million).

TACLOBAN (SE): While reports abound about shoddy reconstruction work being done by government agencies and the snail’s pace progress of its rehousing projects, a major fact that has been swept under the carpet, or maybe under the water, is the actual number of people who died during Typhoon Yolanda in November 2013.